Hezbollah claims Syria will supply game-changing' weapons

By Talia Ralph/GlobalPost

Friday, May 10, 2013

Hezbollah’s leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday that Assad’s regime is supplying his Lebanese militia with “game-changing weapons” in the wake of Israel’s air strike on a convoy near Damascus last week.

He also said the group would help attack Israel from Syria, claiming that Assad had opened up the Golan Heights for “resistance groups” to fight against the Jewish state.

“The Syrian response to Israel’s air strikes was to tell Israel that if your goal is to prevent boosting the capabilities of the resistance then take note ... will give arms,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech,the Daily Star reported. “And will provide with sophisticated weapons that the resistance has never obtained before. We mean game-changing.”

Though Syria has long been a conduit for weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Israel’s air strike of a weapons convoy has raised the stakes in the region.

“This is the Syrian strategic reaction,” said Nasrallah of the expected weapons shipments. “This is more important than firing a rocket or carrying out an airstrike in occupied Palestine,” which is how the group refers to Israel.

According to Israeli officials, Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets, though most are unguided. The shipments that Israel targeted last week reportedly included precision-guided missiles.

Hezbollah and Iran have both gotten increasingly involved in Syria’s ongoing civil war, providing Assad with troops and military advisers.